I only spoke once with Andrew Breitbart. He reached out to me, and we spoke by phone. The topic is not important, but I was shocked that he even knew who I was; but as I’ve come to learn, Andrew seemed to know who everyone was in the conservative blogosphere. He was just that way.

Since my wife called this morning to let me know of Andrew’s death, it has been hard to focus on anything else. In her words, we don’t have that many bright media lights, and to lose him hurts.

Andrew lived in a world without restraints. He could be who he wanted to be, a luxury few bloggers have, particularly those who blog under their own name and work for others.

I live in a world of restraints, and I envied Andrew’s freedom more than you can know.

Andrew is irreplaceable, but we would serve his memory well to aspire to more freedom of thought and more freedom of action.

OK, let’s say that Breitbart was not the one doing the misleading editing. But he still posted it. Here is his own admission:

Do you agree that the edited video took things out of context?
Well, yes. But I put up what I had. It granted a great portion of her redemptive tale, but not all of it. If I could do it all over again, I should have waited for the full video to get to me.

You’re splitting hairs here. You also are taking him at his word that he posted a full video of an excerpt, rather than excerpting it himself. Since he runs a website that acquires video and edits it for publication, I would say an argument could be made that he had the whole video the first time and may have been involved in the editing process.

Bottom line: Breitbart was a conduit for publication of a misleading video excerpt.

I repeat my question to the professor: Will we be seeing the same behavior on LI?

Wow, I had to work and I missed all the fun. Professor, you get my official Troll Slayer Award. I knew you’d discussed the tape at length but I didn’t have time to look it up. Thanks and keep up the great work!

The video did not target Sherrod, but the NAACP. It exposed the prejudice which is obfuscated by their claimed pursuit of civil rights. It exposed contemporary civil rights businesses as fostering an environment which denigrates individual dignity and profits from its perpetuation.

Your should really get up to speed on the real issues of Shirley Sherrod and the Pigford ripoff before you criticize Andrew Breitbart (and Professor Jacobson, for that matter). Ben Shapiro does an excellent job explaining the whole case here.

I think I can speak for everybody when I say, “We know we don’t say it enough, but we love you and we’re behind you all the way.”

Mrs. Jacobson is right … we don’t have that many bright media lights.

I hope yours grows brighter and brighter so you may act as a voice for us.

LukeHandCool (who will now shut up and stop making everbody cringe. But who, in memory of Andrew, is determined to redouble his efforts (whatever they may be) and strive for nothing less than complete victory).

I stumbled across the news of Andrew’s death while looking for something completely unrelated. I was, and remain, completely stunned…to the point of denial. Naw! This is just a massive, over-the-top Breitbart stunt. He’s drawing the left out to make fools out of themselves only to drop some ultimate shocking revelation: “No, I’m not dead, AND ALSO ____________________”

I know that’s not true. But one needs to have implausible hopes at times.

Make no mistake, the reason some lefties are giddy in celebration (disgusting as that may be) is simple: More than any other prominent conservative journalist/pundit/blogger, Andrew deeply understood the left. He understood the will to power which underlies left-leaning ideologies from orthodox Marxism-Leninism to mild mannered welfare-liberalism. He understood the utopian obsession, the elitism, the echo-chamber style of discourse (almost completely ignorant of the political/social opinions of the broader society…and proud of that ignorance) which are omnipresent in most leftist circles. Most importantly, he understood that the left will use any means to achieve its ends.

But that’s not all: He was also fearless. He successfully used leftist tactics against the left, and he did so mercilessly, masterfully, and without hesitation. Moreover, he did not care what anyone said about him, what any self-righteous indignation the chattering classes spewed forth about him. Indeed, he relished it. He reveled in drawing them out, in pushing them to inadvertently exposing themselves as smug, elitist, intolerant, power-hungry adolescents. He peeled back their finely crafted and tightly bound veneer of civility.

Did he go too far at times? Yes. People with a mission and passionately driven to achieve that mission often do. But he was of a greater threat to the left than National Review, Commentary, the Weekly Standard, etc. combined. I’m sure that if Andrew is looking down on us right now, he is thrilled to read some of the comments on lefty blogs about his passing. I’m sure he’s pleased to see that even in death, he managed to expose the ugly personalities of so many self-satisfied and morally tut-tutting progressives.

^ This ^
You are absolutely right that Breitbart was a greater threat to the left than all of the rags combined. That is – aside, of course, from the sheer fact of his death – why the loss of Breitbart hurts so much. I never fully realized before today how much pep he put in my step, how much optimism he gave me, and – forgive the Obamaism – how much hope and change he promised.

I was absolutely stunned when I saw it on the news this morning. My first question to my brother was, “What the hell are we going to do? Who is going to replace him?” Breitbart did what needed to be done: dragged the right out of its shell and went on offense, and not just politically, but culturally. He dragged us to engagement. Agh….

I don’t think that Andrew Breitbart lived with any fewer restraints than we do, whether self-imposed or other-imposed, but perhaps he tested the restraints more than we do, and found (or perhaps more precisely, forced) the boundaries to be more malleable. The left operates unrestrained by decency, courtesy, or grace. I think he lived by the motto “Be Not Afraid,” and perhaps that’s what we all need to do.

I’ve been thinking this morning on what Andrew meant. It is hard to measure, i.e., hard to find the end of his value and meaning. We had an expression in radio — “no one is indispensable.” In Andrew we met the indispensable man. He not only identified and embraced the war with the Left (in and of itself pretty shocking given the long stupor of the Bush era and the internalized beaten-wife syndrome on the Right) but went head first into the fray. He SOUGHT OUT conflict. This was not actual heroism because he loved what he was doing. He couldn’t NOT do it. But it was objectively heroic in its achievement and wider value.

He was a revolutionary strategist. He rejected every premise of a war we were losing and seemed content to go on losing; he trashed the entire paradigm of how conservatives or libertarians or classic liberals (he was all of these, broadly speaking) were supposed to behave and the formats to which we were supposed to conform. He set about devising a new paradigm — or a new media world beyond paradigms. Nothing was more threatening to the Left.

Many conservatives of course engage the Left under the right circumstances and with referees (that is, under the Left’s forms and rules). But Breitbart went after them “in the raw”, exposed their true nature. He created the circumstances, made the moments, forced the debate – no rules, no referees, no limits. He didn’t just stand up to the Left, he routed them. With his wit, merriment, energy, he scandalized and scared them. The sight of this was exhilarating.

These qualities, so desperately necessary then and now, are simply not in the genetic code of the conservative. Breitbart was a beautiful freak. We lost the most important cultural warrior of our time.

I am absolutely utterly inconsolable. His last book was an intense read and inspiration for people like me. He was so fierce and fearless and insightful that I’m afraid his like will not be seen again.

More than merely seeing clearly, unambiguously and without nuance, Mr. Brietbart spoke clearly and without ambiguity or nuance. He said what he meant and meant what he said. For that alone he deserves a huge salute and will be sorely missed.

I too just stumbled on this news and am absolutely stunned. At first I thought it was a joke; I had to go to numerous sites before I would actually believe it was true.

I first met Andrew at last year’s CPAC. About a month or so prior to my heading out to D.C. I had sent something to both he and Dana about a local issue that I thought urgently needed to be brought to their attention. Neither one knew me from Adam, but they both rallied the troops and effectively dealt with the issue firsthand.

I am not easily intimidated but when I walked up to thank him for everything he and the “Bigs” had done, my legs were literally shaking. He was like a rock star to me. Not only did he recognize my name and remember the issue but he also, without prompting, launched into a full “update” of everything that had gone on behind the scenes. For the four-five minutes I stood there, transfixed, listening to his play-by-play, I felt like I was in the presence of an absolute Jedi Master. I will never forget the absolute animation, the smirk… When he walked away, all eyes were on him. He commanded the room whenever he stepped into it.

I later asked him if he would consider heading up a “Big Education” in the spirit of tackling academia. True to form, he said he had already bought the naming rights, was all over the idea but was waiting until he could get the right people and “do it right.” I thought it was a great idea when I had it but not only had he already gotten there months (years?) in advance, he had already taken steps to make it happen.

This year, all I heard from friends who were at CPAC was the latest on what Andrew was doing now. One sent me a text here in Iraq saying, “Your friend Benjamin [an absolutely massive Navy SEAL] just saved breitbart from an occupy mob.” When I later read what he had done, and how he had done it, when I finally saw some of the videos, I smiled deep and wide. That was him. That’s exactly what he would do.

If he saw the enemy, he waded in face first with guns blazing. Andrew was a warrior in the truest sense of the word. The man had no fear. I am still in shock. I am very sad to hear he has passed.

I wish I were as eloquent as the rest of you about Andrew Breitbart, but, suffice to say, I am tearful that such a fearless advocate for conservative values has been silenced. God Bless his family and all of us who will miss him so terribly.

He should be remembered for his effort to expose fundamental corruption that is motivated through policies which denigrate individual dignity and devalue human life. Policies enacted and justified through emotional extortion and by a selective history. Policies supported through votes for promises of physical, material, and ego instant gratification. Dreams to be fulfilled through redistributive and retributive change, but also through fraudulent and opportunistic exploitation.

The Times’ Robin Abcarian visited his office in West Los Angeles in 2010. “The command center of Andrew Breitbart’s growing media empire is a suite of offices on Sawtelle Boulevard in West Los Angeles with the temporary feel of a campaign office. Only the computers seem firmly anchored.”

[Sawtelle … the name of my daughter’s old band and the song the Professor posted at LI last year. I’m gonna drive down Sawtelle today and see if I can spot a little memorial to Andrew.]

Breitbart lived in the West L.A. area with his wife, Susie, and their four young children. He was adopted by moderately conservative Jewish parents and attended two of L.A.’s most exclusive private schools — Carlthorp and Brentwood.

[I knew he went to Brentwood, but I didn’t know he attended Carlthorp. It was right across the street from the first apartment my wife and I rented after we were married.]

His father, Gerald, owned Fox and Hounds, a landmark Tudor-style Santa Monica restaurant that later became the punk rock club Madame Wong’s West. His mother, Arlene, was an executive at Bank of America in Beverly Hills and downtown L.A.

[I remember eating at Fox and Hounds a few times as a kid and Gerry Breitbart coming over to chat with my dad. He must’ve met my dad when my dad was city manager back in the early 1960s. Years later my dad opened a store a block away and Gerry Breitbart became one of our customers. Good man. And then it became Madame Wong’s West. I saw quite a few bands play there. It’s funny … ever time I saw Andrew on TV or heard him on the radio, because of his last name, I always thought of Gerry Breitbart, not realizing Gerry was actually his dad … until I read a piece on Andrew in Newsweek that mentioned his dad owned a steakhouse in Santa Monica … small world.]

You distinguish Andrew’s world (“without restraints”) from your world (“I live in a world of restraints”). The uncomfortable but simple fact is that we choose which restraints limit us. It’s not the world that is victimizing you, professor.

Professor, just one word: “Charge!” Well, actually, there might tbe several more words like, “Fix Metaphors, charge right down the middle, and tear’em apart!” Still, take whatever road is there and make it yours. Enough of us will be there to help as we can. But, your LI blog will be a beacon of light that can burn so very bright for this country.

Damn, we’ll miss Andrew Breitbart a lot but his memory will help us all.

“The videos show ACORN staffers purportedly offering advice on taxes and other issues to actors posing as a prostitute and pimp.”

How can any video show “purported” action? They were doing it or they weren’t. The video shows it clearly or it doesn’t. They were offering advice. The media simply cannot bring themselves to say this. They MUST insert a qualifying, scumbling adjective or adverb.

They go on to reiterate the lie about the Sherrod tape, mentioning the “full transcript” in a way that indicts Breitbart but failing to mention he printed the entire transcript. They say Sherrod was “fired” because of the tape but fail to mention Obama fired her despite the exculpatory full transcript Breitbart published simultaneously. It was Obama who discriminated against her.

Commenting on the Ace piece, the great Frum himself exhibits the gall, pride, chutzpah to go one further – presuming to weigh and judge Breitbart’s life and make a pronouncement of what he ‘might have become if he had lived.’

5 “In time, Andrew Breitbart might have aged into greater self-control and a higher concept of public service. Premature death deprived him of the chance at redemption often sought and sometimes found by people who have done wrong in their lives and work.”
Posted by: David Frum at March 01, 2012 02:46 PM (fsFpl)http://minx.cc/?blog=86&post=327127#c17656219

So the Prof’s gonna get jiggy with it? I can’t wait!!!!!! We’ve got your back, sir; what an honor to have Mr. Breitbart contact you personally – he had excellent instincts in who was good out in the blogosphere.

He will be sorely missed, but he has given us the template by which to continue his work.

Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm,
Great Gun towering towards Heaven, about to curse;
Sway steep against them, and for years rehearse
Huge imprecations like a blasting charm!Reach at that Arrogance which needs thy harm,
And beat it down before its sins grow worse.
Spend our resentment, cannon,-yea, disburse
Our gold in shapes of flame, our breaths in storm.

Your steadfastness, your even-tempered, truthful commentary on current events and the challenges of our time, are inspiring. Your care, precision and dedication to accuracy are a steadying influence. LI is a blog for our times. Thank you.

Andrew Breitbart was incandescent. Andrew was break it, smash it, confront it, allow it no place to hide, chase it to the corner, shine a light on it, make people admit what it is and what they’re doing, and what they’re peddling while they call it “journalism.” One of a kind. Sui generis. I love Andrew Breitbart. I am so sorry he’s not with us anymore. God bless him.

Like you, Professor Jacobsen (someone I have admired more and more over the year as I am a conservative teacher living on the front of Madison, WI) – I now know what my efforts need to be in light of the loss of our flagholder – our rock star – or reminder that real liberals evolve into real conservatives as they continue to stay engaged in their skepticism of Big Government.

I am with you 100%. This matters – that we keep the flag running through the field even though the brightest (most effective) flagholder has been laid down…..

Hi, Professor. I’ve been going around all day feeling like I had a hole in me. I read the memorials to Breitbart and watched the replays of his interviews. Nothing helped until I read the last two lines of the above statement. We lost one warrior today, but perhaps another was born. I don’t know what I can do to help from a small town in the deep South, but whatever you need, I’m here.

I’ve been following you for a little while now, Professor, and I’ve left a couple of comments. This post, and the comments, have moved me.

Shocked, then crestfallen, now inconsolable, I’ve also felt growing in me a new resolve. Your post has crystallized it.

I too have many constraints, things I value and need to protect – things that being an outspoken defender of liberty and its conservative values might threaten. I live and work in enemy territory and I learned to lay low, knowing very well how unfairly progressives treat dissenters.

I just bought Righteous Indignation through your site. I hope I can learn how to summon just a fraction of the courage of Andrew. He is our fallen warrior, and now our guiding star.

I think Breitbart was most effective because he was from the left at one point and was an articulate person for conservatism.
I remember even when I was a liberal, I heard of him, and decided I wanted to listen to what he said, and he spoke so plainly yet so appealingly, and he spoke as someone who was a lefty and so knew how to “convert” people aka open their eyes to the left blinders, the double standard on the left.

He seemed like a genuine man, and indeed he was a happy warrior. His insights will be greatly missed, especially by recovering liberals like myself, we are recovering liberals in large part due to people like him, his courage and his tenacity to uncover the left LSM will be missed.